Hello, this is Masa. Now I am writing this article at a Starbucks in Tokyo looking outside where it is raining so hard.
I was forgetting to tell you what I'll write here up to now. If you suffer from Narcolepsy, I strongly recommend you give it a try, as it costs nothing.
When I got Narcolepsy, the worst thing to bear was hallucinations and nightmares. On one occasion, I was stabbed with a knife several times, and on another, I was pushed from a sheer cliff. I always woke up when I screamed. The dream was so vivid that it took some time before I realised that I was in bed.
Soon I started to fear to sleep itself. At first, I tried many things to lessen fear. For example, I found that leaving all the lights and a radio on while sleeping might be effective, but eventually the effect didn't last.
After trial and error, I found a crucial matter. That was the posture of the body. I recognised the fact that sleeping on my stomach caused fewer hallucinations and nightmares. Even now, passing more than ten years, I make it custom to sleep on my stomach.
The other day, I wondered whether there is some thesis about this and googled with google scholar, then... it was there!! The title was "REM-associated hallucinations and sleep paralysis are dependent on body posture"
According to this, 50 out of 79 patients answered that their body posture had some influence on their appearance of hallucinations, and what is more, hallucinations appeared less when they slept on the stomach.
Information like this is super important for Narcolepsy patients, as it is so scary to be killed every night. Please let them know if you have a chance. Then, the next issue you should care about is pillows. I talk about it in the next article. Have a good sleep. 😴
Reference:
Norbert Dahmen and Meike Kasten, 2000, REM-associated hallucinations and sleep paralysis are dependent on body posture
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